.htaccess troubles

Hi all, I am new
I recently installed a droplet with Ubuntu and Wordpress as the application on it.
I am now wanting to remove the .htaccess protection that is included by default. I simply do not know what to do.
I renamed .htaccess to .htaccess.old to (found in /var/www/) and it does not seem to make a difference (still getting asked for basic authentication prompt).
How do I remove this? is there any other location I should be looking at?
thanks in advance